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Radio help

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 15:29
by nick
Bought a cheap Pyle radio with the retro manual tuner. It looks great installed and sounds OK with the original speakers. Good enough for a pair of 68 year old ears. However, I can not figure out how to wire it so the balance control works.

The OEM wiring on the car has a black and a black/white wire out of each speaker. These 4 wires come to a combining connector. Out of the connector comes two wires to the radio. So I thought the combining connector connects both B/Ws and both Bs making a single spear wire and a single ground. In which case the original OEM setup had no balance control.

The radio diagram shows a red and green to each speaker and a black to ground. It can't get any simpler than that.

I did not want to cut the connector off so I put the R and G wires in the OEM combining connector where the B/W come in. But this obviously does not work. I'm probably making a mono out of a stereo by doing that.

Anyone else run into this?

Image[img][IMG]http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt234/nickmi/TR7%201975/Yellow.jpg[/img]
nick
'79 TR7 DHC
'76 TR7 FHC

Posted: 14 Jan 2014 13:43
by jclay (RIP 2018)
Connect the new ground wire to the black wire on the old connector.

Now I am afraid that you will have to cut the two black/white wires to the speakers down stream of the connector. Connect one to the red wire and the other to the green wire. If you want to be able to put every thing back together at some point, get male and female Sta-Kon connectors that are shielded and cut the black/white wires about 2" from the connector.



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Put the female Sta-Kon connector on the wires from the speakers and the male connectors on the red, green and the tag ends of the black/white wires at the connector. If you ever put the original radio back in, just unplug the red and green wires and plug in the original wires.

My radio has both fade and balance, so I put two very small speakers (MP3 speakers from RS, NLA) under the plastic covers on the folding top anchor points. It works well and fills the car with sound.

Clay

[url="http://www.jclay.me/"]My Triumph Site[/url], [url="http://www.triumphtechnical.me"]Technical Stuff[/url], [url="https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B8MWEvqOpX3udEF4SmFQUW9RS09hbU5uNW5Wd0xrUQ/edit"]My Public Folder[/url],

Posted: 15 Jan 2014 21:33
by nick
Thanks for the tip Clay.

That cheapo Pyle radio sounds pretty good when the car is stopped. But it doesn't hold the station too well after I start moving. Probably should have opted for the digital tuner over the manual. But the MP3 player works OK and I can load a bunch of music onto a thumb drive and use it.

Image[img][IMG]http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt234/nickmi/TR7%201975/Yellow.jpg[/img]
nick
'79 TR7 DHC
'76 TR7 FHC

Posted: 15 Jan 2014 23:16
by FI Spyder
Yah, that's the way I would use it. Stations aren't very strong here coming from Vancouver or Washington, even the stock digital tuner in the Integra doesn't do a good job so I think the digital tuner might not be that much better. Ron has a satellite radio head that he plays through his stock radio that came in his 30th anniversary (same as in the Spider) and it comes in very clear. I suspect the same would be for the Pyle. If you really want a radio for the broadcast stations I would look at that possibility. I don't usually listen to music on the road but I'd like to pull into the car show venues with Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" blaring.[8D]



- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT
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Posted: 16 Jan 2014 00:03
by jclay (RIP 2018)
I do like to cruze with the top down and the radio blaring out "The Good, the Bad and The Ugly" soundtrack, but I could never hear the turn indicators. I did two things to try and not be driving down the road for miles with the indicators on.

First, I replaced the green plastic over the indicator lights in the dash pod with some lighter green theatricals gels. Next, I installed Odd's turn signal buzzer. Works a treat! (Egads! I have been hanging out with you Brits way too long!)

[url="http://www.triumphtechnical.me/triumphtechnical/Blinker_Buzzer.html"]<i><b>Odd's Blinker Buzzer</b></i>[/url]

Clay

[url="http://www.jclay.me/"]My Triumph Site[/url], [url="http://www.triumphtechnical.me"]Technical Stuff[/url], [url="https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B8MWEvqOpX3udEF4SmFQUW9RS09hbU5uNW5Wd0xrUQ/edit"]My Public Folder[/url],

Posted: 16 Jan 2014 22:22
by wedgewa
Is the balance control on the radio for left/right or for front/rear?

Posted: 16 Jan 2014 22:26
by rgsSpider
Balance is left/right. Fader is front/rear. At least here in the states.

Randy

1980 TR7 <font color="red">Spider!</font id="red">
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